


The Right Question

by OrionLady



Category: The Listener (TV)
Genre: Angst, Catharsis, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Epic Friendship, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, Male-Female Friendship, Michelle being the best bro, Mind Reading, Mother-Son Relationship, Of course!, Past Child Abuse, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Reunions, Team as Family, Telepathy, Toby finally gets his hugs dangit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:42:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22591198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrionLady/pseuds/OrionLady
Summary: In the aftermath of the series finale, Toby finally being reunited with his mother, he struggles to catch his breath and stop shaking. Confused about the onslaught of emotions, a conversation (or two) with Michelle helps him understand what it all means. Family is not a thing to be earned.
Relationships: Toby Logan/Tia Tremblay
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what possessed me to write this - but there was something tender, warm, and vital missing from the finale, a kernel or heart of the matter, that demanded to be heard. I couldn't let Toby find his 'old' family without acknowledging the truth of the one he has now. 
> 
> Here goes my attempt!

‘We’ve wanted to be trusty and true  
But feathers fell from our wings,  
And we’ve wanted to be worthy of you  
But weather rained on our dreams.’

"Trusty and True" ~ Damien Rice

It’s easy.

It’s easy and there are no hoops to jump through. Simple and straightforward.

That’s the part—despite the next few _hours_ , since they’re all talking over each other and breathless with wonder and none of them want to go to bed, to end this fragile and sacred bubble of a moment, long as it is—that takes the longest to sink in.

What a funny thing to be perplexed about.

It doesn’t happen like all the daydreams and actual dreams he’s had about this moment. There’s no music, for one thing. He can’t even blame that part of the fantasy on him being an ignorant child because adult him had music in the background too. Something over the top, a huge string orchestra maybe, changing key right as the first tear falls.

Of course there’s no music. But there’s no dramatic pause either. There’s no hysteria or falling to their knees or kisses planted all over his face, since there wasn’t a lot of that in his childhood either, what little he can remember from Before.

There’s just tea and him sitting beside her, and a long stretch where all they do is catch each other up on their lives now. She peppers it in with a, “I’m so sorry,” every once in a while, at least twice an hour (yes, he’s counting) and every time all three of them rush to reassure her that she has nothing to apologize for, that she disappeared to protect him.

It’s…it’s so easy.

Nobody makes him pay anything or trade priorities or give up his job or threaten his family for it. Nobody forces him into the back of a dark car, like Child Services used to all the time when he got shuffled around to a new foster home. There’s no cost to have the one thing he’s always wanted.

One minute, Toby is standing between his best friend and a woman he is beginning to think seriously about marriage towards and the next the doorbell rings. They all freeze.

And then his mother is _sitting right beside him._

Breathing becomes a premium feature that Toby has to think consciously about or he finds himself holding his breath for too long and then his heart is pounding all over again.

Only one small detail matches his fantasy and it’s not the one he expected at all, one of those subconscious things he’s never taken notice of before.

She hasn’t packed a bag.

Somehow this gesture hits home to Toby more than anything else. That she heard her son was looking for her, that he has a life now, and she dropped absolutely everything to hop a bus and show up at his door at ten o’clock on a Thursday.

She tells him she’s proud of him, but that one almost doesn’t compute, doesn’t even matter so much as the fact that she’s _here_ and drinking what little tea they could scrounge up, which turns out to be the peppermint one their neighbours gave them at Christmas. It’s a bit stale but nobody cares.

“Peppermint is supposed to be calming anyway,” says Tia in a flustered babble and Toby loves her a little bit more for it, especially since it’s not keeping any of them calm right now.

It’s hours and seconds all at once to Toby when Oz gets a chiming text on his phone, from a person he apparently can’t ignore. A frown wrinkles his forehead.

“Sorry, guys.” Oz makes a face. “My cousin is having trouble balancing the books and I’ve got to go over and help.”

Closing up shop? What is he talking about? The night is still young…

Toby glances at his phone too and is startled to see it’s almost two am. He’s been talking and talking all night but he hasn’t, really, and his tongue feels like a slippery fish inside his mouth when he finally gets it to move. “That’s okay, Oz. Hey, thank you—both of you—” He points at Tia as well. “—For making this happen.”

His mother takes his hand but he doesn’t look away from Oz’s slow, self satisfied nod and Tia’s eyes, which fill up for perhaps the eighth time tonight.

“I love you, brother,” says Oz, another easy thing, as always. He claps Toby on the back with a quick salute. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Love you too, Oz-Man.”

“Very funny.” Oz flicks Toby’s forehead in retaliation for the old nickname, then turns towards Maya. Oz grasps her other hand and dips over it in the signature bow. He chirps off a quick, Turkish farewell that Toby has heard many times. “It was a pleasure meeting you.”

Maya squeezes his fingers, gaze so warm it winds Toby again. “You as well, Mr. Bey. I’m glad Toby has such golden hearted people to call his friends.”

They holler goodbyes until the door shuts behind him.

“I should be going to bed too.” Tia’s attempt to give them some privacy is painfully obvious but both mother and son send her grateful looks. Then the reporter straightens. “Wait…do you have somewhere to stay?”

Good point. One Toby hasn’t thought of at all.

Maya blinks fast. “Oh, I’m afraid I didn’t plan that far ahead. I’ll just catch a cab to the nearest motel so I’m out of your hair.”

Toby’s hackles raise at the very idea. He grabs his mother’s arm before his shrill thoughts can collect themselves together into a semblance of reason, as if she’s a balloon that will float away the second he loses contact with her.

Tia beats him to it, sounding scandalized. “Are you kidding me? I did not spend weeks trying to find you just for you to walk out that door and sleep in a…a _motel_!”

Eyes wide, Maya glances between them. She leans back a little.

Tia flushes and her tone lowers. “Sorry.”

“What she means,” says Toby, with a quick smile at Tia, “is that you’re more than welcome to stay here. This is a three bedroom house, in fact, so you have your pick of the two guest rooms.”

“You can borrow some of my old pajamas and clothes,” Tia adds.

‘Are you sure?’ asks Maya, before Toby suddenly realizes she didn’t say this out loud.

He jumps, a visible and out of character reaction. Tia’s eyes dart from his face and then, with abrupt understanding, to his mother.

“Yes,” says Toby, verbally, both for her benefit and Tia’s. “You’re welcome here as long as you want. And that, whew, _that_ will take some getting used to.”

A wry look steals over Toby’s face, once the shock dies.

Tia grins, oddly smug. “It’s nice to even the playing field a little. Now you know how everyone feels when you do it.”

The two women laugh and Toby throws up his hands. “I never do it to people I love without permission! That’s the rule—and I can’t do it to you even if I wanted to!”

Maya tilts her head in confusion.

“I have epilepsy,” Tia explains. She smirks down at Toby. “And this seems to prevent him from rummaging through my thoughts.”

“Which I _wouldn’t_ , because it’s dishonourable.”

“Yes, Mr. Logan, and it’s part of your charm.” Tia leans down for a kiss and Toby obliges, before she waves and heads up the stairs for bed. “Goodnight!”

Toby shakes his head, since his mother’s still kind of laughing at him, and once again it’s easy. After the heaviness of the night’s conversation, this moment of levity helps him breathe.

When Maya’s laughter dies, they sit in comfortable silence for a few minutes, listening to a dog bark a few houses down the street. It’s quiet on the block tonight, with it being a week night, and the lack of cars allows him to hear it when rain finally stops _tap-tap-tapping_ at their window panes.

Maya’s touch roves across Toby’s hand, stopping each time it encounters something other than smooth skin, and Toby realizes she is cataloguing every new scar or callus that she doesn’t recognize. His mother was a tactile person in his memories, just not in the way most are, a warm hearted person who rarely used her words to show it. She always used touch.

Toby finds himself hesitant, but he starts to move his own fingers. They sift up her palm until he encounters her wrist and then he stops there, feeling her pulse—so light and fast, like a bird’s. It’s fitting, given how often she has to disappear, to flee.

But maybe not anymore.

Maya is nervous and overwhelmed too, it hits Toby then. She wasn’t sure he’d want her back in his life. He can only hope their enthusiasm of tonight has proven her wrong, that she is the missing piece of his heart and a relationship with her is all he’s ever really wanted.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

Maya doesn’t elaborate but Toby nods.

“Can you stay?” He matches her volume.

“Yes, and I appreciate you giving me a room for a while.”

“No, I mean…” Toby swivels so he’s facing her at an angle, closer, knees touching. “I don’t know how far away you live now, far enough if you had to bus here, but can you…can you stop running?”

Maya’s face falls. “Toby…”

“Because my job, what I do now, it can protect you. You _and_ us.” He recognizes that he’s rambling but can’t seem to rein himself in. “You don’t have to live as a ghost anymore. Or as a dead woman, from what I understand of how you’re listed in the system.”

Maya clenches his hand, once, hard. She shifts to stand. “Toby, maybe we should have this conversation in the morning, when we’re both not so exhausted.”

“No!” Toby stands with her, voice desperate and panicked. “Mom, please!”

The pair of them go statue still at the exact same instant. They’re still linked, hands-to-wrists, and the feel of her blood— _his_ blood—makes him heady. This is the only biological relative he has left, at least the only one who matters in any present context.

Maya looks as thunderstruck as Toby, hearing a word he hasn’t said out loud in that way since he was a child.

‘I can’t lose you too.’ He knows he’s pleading but doesn’t care.

‘I’ve always loved you. I never stopped, even when giving you up, which is the hardest thing I have ever done.’

Toby searches her eyes. ‘Just stay. All you have to do is stay.’

Maya touches his face this time, with her free hand. The side of his cheek, thumb stroking over his ear. ‘You are my boy, and nothing will change that.’

A strange, buzzing sensation swells inside Toby’s nose. Like when Oz shakes a bottle of pop right before handing it to him, as a cheap prank, and a mountain of fizz bursts all the way through his sinuses. He wants to describe the sensation as _noise_ , but knows that’s not quite accurate.

It’s…it’s…

It is _easy._

That doesn’t make any sense either, yet somehow it is the truth.

Toby lets out a breath that isn’t even in the same time zone as steady and his knees buckle. He has to fall back onto the window seat and Maya kneels in front of him. Her eyes, unlike his wide ones, are narrowed, warm, and knowing. Toby is glad someone gets what’s happening here because he certainly doesn’t.

‘Toby.’

Maya doesn’t ‘say’ anything more but there’s no need to. Just that one sound, a name she gave him, born into being and beamed straight into his soul even though neither have opened their mouths since he called her Mom, makes him start trembling.

‘Toby, son.’

This word is his undoing. One simple word and the fizz reaches all the way down his throat and surges up on a crested wave into his ears and up around the back of his scalp. He almost shivers until the fizz turns to colours and Toby realizes his eyes are scrunched shut, too tight, that he’s seeing stars.

Maya taps his nose and he opens them.

He’s gasping. He’s gasping and he’s wet. Why is he wet? Did their roof spring a leak after all in these last four days of never ending rain? Tia was worried about their roof…

‘It’s hard, isn’t it?’ Maya smiles.

Toby pants some more. ‘What is?’

But Maya doesn’t explain, just looks at him with those bonfire, thawing eyes. They are his eyes, even though they aren’t the same colour. After a moment, Toby understands too.

He has spent his whole life listening to other people, being _bombarded_ with noise.

But nobody has ever heard _him_. His inner world has been so muted and quiet, with no one to reach down into the shadowy places and meet him there. He’s always been somewhat alone inside his head.

Not tonight, not ever again if she stays. There’s someone else in there making _noise_ and it’s not quiet anymore.

‘I see you,’ she whispers into his mind, and it’s like a wispy, tendril-armed hug that heats him all the way down to his core, to a deep dark pocket, that has felt like ice ever since he was a boy. ‘I see your pain, Toby, and I’m so sorry.’

This time the sorry isn’t for leaving him. This time the sorry is trying to encapsulate years of foster homes and mistreatment and betrayal in one powerful burst of compassion.

And Toby finally recognizes that he’s crying. Crying in that sobbing, open way he hasn’t since he was twelve years old and a mean foster father told him no family was ever coming for him and that nobody loved him.

Years upon years of bottled emotions start to wail away inside his chest. They’re noisy too. Maya’s face tightens, like she can feel it, and Toby senses that, yes—she most definitely can. She’s a much stronger telepath than him. He knew that the second she walked in, at least in the sense that she has an empathetic tint that he doesn’t.

His reading reach is farther than hers but her reach is _deeper._ So much deeper. She might only be able to read one or two people at a time, yet she can unfurl every last feeling inside their bodies and how it ties to thoughts and memories.

Like his memories right now.

He wonders absently if this much emotion, over two decades of it, is overwhelming to her. If so, his mother doesn’t show it. She just kneels and waits and hums inside his head.

Toby wipes at his face, for all the good it does. Maya looks proud of those tears falling into his lap and their tangled up hands. Toby looks embarrassed.

‘Don’t be. There’s a difference between living and surviving, Toby. And you’ve been in survival mode, both physically and emotionally, for a long time.’

Toby calms long enough to gaze into her eyes, an intense enough moment that he gets flashes of her thoughts from years ago. There are a lot of images, mostly of him as a boy.

‘We both have, Mom.’

Maya nods. ‘Maybe it’s time to stop surviving and start having a life. You’ve made yours and I’m so…relief and joy don’t even begin to describe it.’

She doesn’t have to describe it, because even if Toby doesn’t have the ability to read peoples’ emotions as well as her, he sees the way she lights up, a few of her own tears falling, and the hum inside his head becomes a song.

An old song. An old song with new words.

He leans forward so their foreheads tip together, their matching crowns of dark hair. Hers is curly and his is straight. Her eyes are hazel and his are glacier blue. They’re close in height but not the same build. Toby’s striking features are pieces of a man they both lost a long time ago.

None of it matters.

When she looks at him, she sees herself and a complete person that she’s proud of, he knows, looking at himself through her eyes. And he looks at her and sees the final puzzle piece of his heritage slot into place, like a portrait from a hundred years ago has sprung to life and started bustling about in real time.

Then Toby can no longer resist it, and he realizes the impact of Tia’s presence in his life as well. She’s a hug magnet, wanting to go octopus around Toby every time the wind blows, just because, for no reason at all other than the fact that she loves him, and it’s made him a hugger too.

He stands to pull his mother in for a tight embrace. Her arms immediately twine around his back but they’re like pieces of wire at first. Stiff, unsure. Then they remember what to do, in the way of all mothers holding their babies and Toby feels himself wrapped up in her just like she’s doing to his mind. It’s the single most reassuring sensation he’s felt in years, the hybrid of physical and mental comfort.

‘You’ll be here in the morning?’ he asks, because old habits die hard.

Maya kisses his temple. ‘Always.’


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michelle doesn’t say any of these expected things. Her voice stays in that twilight zone of quiet, intimate friendship. He’s never heard her this open, let alone relaxed. “ _Toby, I think you calling me is the answer to your question. Not that it’s what you’re really trying to ask me, but…_ ”
> 
> Toby blinks, playing with the sweater’s hem. “I don’t get it.”

‘Lay down your fears,  
Cause we can’t take back  
What is done, what is past,  
So let us start from here.’

“Trusty and True” ~ Damien Rice

_Ice…trees…_

_Snow…_

_RUN!_

Toby bolts awake into a sitting position, gasping.

The cold comes back with a vengeance, though he realizes it is his body that’s cold and not his heart this time.

Thankfully, his stirring hasn’t woken Tia beside him. She’s visibly exhausted, both from the late hour they went to bed and how much this search and then the possible threat against them has taken its toll. Toby breathes in the dark of their bedroom, staring at the ladybug drawing Tia did when she was five that she still has pinned on her dresser, until the world sounds normal.

He pats himself down. Still wearing the thick blue sweater from when he went to bed.

He’d sort of…fallen asleep, literally. Collapsed beside Tia and was out before his head hit the pillow. Glancing at the bedside clock, green numbers glow in the dark— _4:52 am._

Only two hours of sleep, then.

Toby doesn’t feel tired, surprisingly, but he’s still shivering. How can he be chilled? Their house is kept pretty toasty because Tia runs cold, and he’s dressed in flannel pants and a fleece lined sweater.

Something sharp spikes across his sternum and he holds his breath.

_Am I having an anxiety attack?_

That can’t be right. The few times he’s had one, mostly as a teen in crappy group homes, he’d run hot, _very_ hot, not cold. Having an anxiety attack is like being set on fire in the desert.

It’s also immediately suspicious that he feels no need to turn up said heat. He pats his forehead and it’s as warm as usual, along with his skin.

Toby creeps out of bed and slides on a pair of slippers before padding down the hall. The cold feeling intensifies, with a slithery after taste of fear. It’s a very specific fear, in association with a very particular kind of instinct.

Suddenly he understands.

Toby pushes open the guest bedroom door, the one Tia had made up in all shades of blue, not the combined workout and yoga studio one, and _now_ he’s shivering in earnest. Maya hasn’t moved since he walked her up to bed a few hours earlier and she too fell asleep almost instantly, but she’s quivering just like Toby.

He doesn’t enter the room. Doesn’t need to.

‘Mom.’ Toby fights against the nightmarish images of his mother’s memories, running through the woods alone, at night. Away from someone, a man, while the first snow fall of the season chilled her to the bone. ‘You’re having a nightmare. It’s okay. I promise that you’re safe here.’

The feeling of someone else’s thoughts in sleep must be as novel for her as it is to Toby, because he barely gets the first sentence out and she relaxes. The icy feeling vanishes as quickly as it came. Toby finally stops shivering and is relieved by the rush of normal, in real life temperature.

To replace the cold, Toby sends across an image, the memory of he and his mother trying to name his baby brother. Laughing, happy.

He must not hide his longing quite well enough, for Maya sighs in her sleep. She feels it too, the wondering over what happened to that baby.

Mission accomplished, Toby gently shuts the door. Her thoughts dim, though he can still feel a flash of yellow across their connection, the sunny day they spent at the park, throwing sunflowers seeds in the water for the mallard ducks.

Toby unwinds, faintly, at this memory.

He stands there in the hallway and listens to two sets of breathing, his partner’s and his mother’s. Two people in his life he never thought he’d get to say he has. How has he come so far in such a short time? Uneasy, Toby finds that he doesn’t have an answer.

Sunrise is still an hour off, and Toby knows he should feel sleepy, should get some rest while he can before all the paperwork they’ll have to do tomorrow.

Right now, however, something restless flares up inside his stomach. The sensation is an old friend, keeping him safe across the miles of his youth and hounding him all at once.

Shaking again, Toby pads down the stairs and onto their back porch. He sits on the top step, staring up at the first stars appearing from behind the dissipating storm that has held Toronto in its iron grip. He’s not sure what’s causing the trembles this round, whether emotion or cold or just sheer overtiredness. Maybe the shock of it all is catching up with him or something.

This explanation makes the most sense, but nor does it feel right.

Toby doesn’t realize he’s dialed a number from memory until he brings the cellphone up to his ear. It rings four times before someone’s groggy voice says, “ _Hello? Toby, is that you?_ ”

Toby swallows. “Can I ask you a question?”

There’s the sound of blankets being shucked off and then the soupy shuffle of someone trying to close a heavy door without making any noise. She’s almost successful, only a soft click until the low drone of central heating is replaced by the distant twitter of night birds.

Toby waits to be yelled at. For the snarled and alarmed iterations that she is on _vacation_ and _why are you calling me, Toby?_

But all Michelle says is, “ _Shoot_.”

“Are you at the cabin by the lake?”

“ _That’s your question?_ ”

“No, I’m just wondering.”

There’s a smile, the ratatouille mixture of humour and irritation layered together, in her voice. “ _Why ask a question if you already know the answer?_ ”

“Making small talk is considered polite when calling unexpectedly. And you’ve needed a break, so good for you.”

A pause. Michelle must turn or walk down a path because the sound of lapping water grows louder. “ _Yes, Toby. Adam and I took Carry to the lake. Her first time ever and until two minutes ago, some of the best sleep I’ve had in months._ ”

“Sorry for interrupting it.”

“ _No, you’re not_.” But Michelle’s voice isn’t angry. She doesn’t say it in that snippy way some people do. She’s an honest, blunt woman and Toby has always appreciated that about her. “ _What’s your real question, Toby? It must be important._ ”

Toby runs tense fingers through his hair, then pulls the sweater cuffs so they swallow his hands. “My mom showed up tonight.”

A silence follows this that is so long and so bombastic that Toby pulls the phone away from his ear for a moment to get some relief from it. For the first time, he is glad he cannot read minds across the phone.

“Over twenty years I’ve been looking for my past,” says Toby, in a compacted spill of words, “and tonight, because my girlfriend called the ex federal agent who helped her disappear and sign a _death certificate_ , apparently, because that always gets rid of nosy parties, she suddenly decides that now it’s worth the risk to see me and drink my tea. And it was terrible tea, Michelle. It had dried bits of leaves and everything.

"And then my mom—who’s also a telepath, by the way, that’s a fun time—tells me she loves me and is wearing Tia’s crocodile pajamas, the ones she learned how to sew in her university class so the legs are two different lengths, and my mother is _sleeping in_ _my house_ , Michelle.”

Toby’s voice breaks on the word ‘love.’

The only thing that finally halts him is that he feels the fizz again, and is scared enough of tears that he has to focus on breathing to be rid of it. So he stops talking. A bird sings in the background of the call, a loon’s throaty note bouncing across lake water, and Toby shields his eyes with a shaking hand.

“ _I’m so happy for you_ ,” Michelle whispers, with the sound of her own fizz. He’s also always liked that about Michelle, that they share a kinship in their fear of strong emotions and tend to stuff them down. Not that she’s censoring anything now. “ _Toby, nobody deserves this second chance more than you. I’m so,_ so _happy for you._ ”

Then she hums across the line, a note not unlike his mother’s. With his already wound up nerves, it makes him start, a little.

“ _But that’s still not a question, Toby_.”

Toby sniffs. “Michelle, why can’t I stop shaking?”

Again, he waits for the professional assessment of shock or overstimulation, how it will take his body a long time to get used to another person inside his head, that a big life milestone like this always requires some adjustment.

“Sorry,” he blurts again, and wants to laugh at how he’s already starting to sound like his mother. “I don’t even know why I called. I’ll just hang up now.”

Michelle doesn’t say any of these expected things. Her voice stays in that twilight zone of quiet, intimate friendship. He’s never heard her this open, let alone relaxed. “ _Toby, I think you calling me_ is _the answer to your question. Not that it’s what you’re really trying to ask me, but…_ ”

Toby blinks, playing with the sweater’s hem. “I don’t get it.”

Michelle chuckles, one of those quick sounds she does when she’s trying to clamp down on the gesture before it can get too big. This time she lets it go a little, like the secret ending of a book Toby’s never allowed to read. He listens to the rounded chime of her laughter and finds himself smiling.

“ _Do you remember what I said to Becker yesterday?_ ”

Toby nods. “We take care of each other.”

“ _Toby,_ ” she murmurs, taking pity on him. “ _You called me because your mom isn’t your only family now. You already have a complete one, even before she stepped through your door tonight._ ”

He pauses, blinking, at that one for a while. This statement sounds simple and like a Chinese puzzle box all at once. For how quick his brain can be, he’s not sure he’ll ever find the solution to the furtive, core machinations of family. It’s always been a forbidden word, something other people have and he has to watch from the sidelines.

“You and the team are my family,” says Toby in a slow and cautious drawl, feeling incredibly stupid.

“ _Exactly. And what do you do when you’re overwhelmed by something too big to process?_ ”

“You go to your family for help.” Toby never had this kind of support growing up and the experience of it is so new, so soothing, that he almost blushes. From living on the streets to having people worried about him.

Light years away from each other.

“ _Your mom did not walk into your life to make you whole, Toby. You already_ are _whole._ ” Michelle is oh-so light and hushed. “ _She came to witness all the pieces your family put back together—she came to behold, with pride, the result of that love and hard work._ ”

“I thought she waited until I was worth it.” The warm cut of these tears, down Toby’s pale cheeks, aren’t spurred by sobs or the wheezing of earlier. These are silent, cloying and reverent. “I thought…I thought that maybe she didn’t want me until now. I’ve been trying to figure out what I could have done before.”

“ _No_.” Michelle’s tone is firm, the same one she uses to argue with federal prosecutors. “ _That’s not true, not for one second, you hear me? You were ready now, and she came because she loves you. Simple as that. Just like we all love you._ ”

Toby’s breath catches. Michelle is not a candid person, not when it comes to her inner, emotional life. To hear her say it, out loud and without shame, is one of the biggest shocks of this whole day.

“You know that goes both ways, right?”

“ _Of course, Toby._ ” She’s back to laughing. “ _Why else would I be woken up at this awful hour?_ ”

“Families who bother each other stay together?”

“ _Something like that. Give it time and we’ll set you straight on how this whole people-who-care-about-each-other thing works._ ”

Toby ducks his head, shy even though she can’t see him. “I’m counting on that.”

“ _And don’t you forget it._ ”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michelle’s voice slips into a whisper. “Nobody is going to make you jump through any hoops or set up expectations to receive their love, least of all your mother.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is a bona fide dead fandom, and that I've shown up to the party YEARS too late, but if anyone still loves the show - please come geek out with me!

‘Come, come along,  
Come with sorrows and songs—  
Come however you are,  
Just come, come along.’

“Trusty and True” ~ Damien Rice

‘Logical’ is in interesting word. Interesting in the sense that the definition of it can be so shifty when, by its very nature, it’s supposed to make things more solid. More dependable and clear cut in an otherwise murky situation.

Toby understands this dichotomy when, the next morning, he finds himself standing over a tombstone.

It’s his mother’s.

The same mother who is, at this very moment, out for a walk around their neighbourhood while Tia calls her editor to say that she won’t be at work. Toby too called in a few days off, only to find out that Dev decided on the exact same course of action to spend time with Alex—which, _finally_. It’s something their entire unit desperately needs and so the brass upstairs aren’t too worried. They’ve become a teensy bit workaholic and burnout is always a concern in this profession.

But there’s nothing logical about the fact that he told Tia, “I’m headed out to get some groceries and toiletries for Mom.”

And then just…ended up here.

He drove to the location she had mentioned briefly in passing last night as her ‘final resting place’ without much thought. It’s closer to Toronto than he expects, about a forty five drive outside the city, not that this area is anywhere near her current safe house.

With the crisp spring morning, Toby keeps his hands tunneled snug inside his coat pockets. It’s hovering just above the freezing mark, so the process of seeing his breath dissipates after a few minutes when the air warms.

The headstone is a sandy colour, which on any other day would look drab and terribly mundane. Today…today it seemed to glow even before Toby found it. A beacon, gentle and reassuring with the golden glint of timid sunlight. It’s got a dove with a halo carved into the top, under which are inscribed Maya’s dates of life, the death matching when she was scrubbed from the federal system, followed by a tiny quote:

‘He will quiet you with his love, rejoice over you with singing.’

This is an immediate giveaway that someone else made the tombstone, for Maya never went to church a day in her life, from what little Toby remembers. He makes a face at the words, until he understands and his features smooth.

There’s an uncomfortable burn along the back of his eyes, at the memory of her singing, and he does a little loop around this part of the cemetery to be rid of it.

Logical. Not a word to fit anything that’s happening here. It’s not logical that he is here instead of home. It isn’t anything even approaching logical that the sight of this false grave is intensely heartening and lip-quaveringly tragic all at once.

Toby stands there for a long time. Long enough for his nose to go numb. The day is overcast, with just enough steeped light to turn everything the colour of soggy butter. Like he’s in an old, sepia movie that’s been retouched.

The sound of a car door gently but firmly shutting makes Toby flinch. He doesn’t turn from his place in front of Maya’s grave, however, and footfalls crunch towards him across the grass.

“We’re the start of a bad joke, you and I.”

Toby fights the crooked arc around his mouth that wants desperately to become a grin. “A telepath and a detective walk into a graveyard…”

Michelle snorts. She finally makes it to his side, only to nudge him with her pointy elbow. Ow. “I was going to say two off duty investigators _still_ find themselves surrounded by death, but sure. That works too.”

Toby hunches his shoulders, so that his flipped up collar brushes along his earlobes. The two friends huddle close for warmth and, Toby suspects, so Michelle can discreetly size up his condition.

“I have a question of my own.”

“Shoot,” Toby echoes her.

“How long have you been standing here?”

“Are you sure that’s your question?”

Michelle smiles, even with her teeth, and Toby accepts the second, less jabby nudge. “I’ve heard it’s polite to make small talk when calling upon someone unexpectedly.”

“Mmm.” Toby reads Maya’s dates again, trying to understand how something so big, so monumental, can fit in one tiny chisel stroke. “‘Bout an hour.”

“Gotcha.” Michelle’s voice is nonchalant, no big deal, but her side eyed gaze tracks his face. Then she too glances at the headstone and her eyes darken.

“Dev tracked my phone?” Toby guesses.

“Yeah, when Tia got worried.” Michelle sighs. “We all were, really. Toby—you’ve been gone for three hours.”

“What?” Toby blinks, finally looking at Michelle and the surrounding field. “No, I haven’t. That can’t be right. I just left at eight this morning.”

Michelle takes out her phone to show him. “Toby, it’s eleven fifteen.”

Toby is thunderstruck and horrified, mostly to realize that she’s right and he’s lost track of so much time. His ears ring with the surprise of it all for a moment. He opens his mouth to stumble out an apology.

“I was in the neighbourhood anyway,” says Michelle before he can, pointing a thumb over her shoulder. “This cemetery is on the way to our next locale. Spontaneous road trip.”

Toby glances at her car, seeing Adam with Carry on his lap in the passenger’s seat. He looks like he’s singing a silly song that has the baby’s nose scrunching with giggles. One of Toby’s favourite things in the entire world is reading a baby’s mind. Right now, despite the distance, he gets a flash of bright colours and Michelle’s smiling face, a little distorted since Carry’s eyes-to-long-term-memory processes aren’t fully developed. Baby memories of a mother.

A mother’s love.

Deflating, Toby releases a huge gust of air. “I had no idea.”

Michelle says nothing, lips pursed tight now. Then her gaze shifts out past Maya’s headstone, past the field, all the way to the horizon of trees lining the cemetery. Beyond that, somewhere down the road, is a duck pond and Toby can hear their quacking where it carries on the cold air.

He’s not even sure Michelle is seeing that, instead up and somewhere off into the clouds. Her eyes reflect them, little bronze flames of a sun teasing behind the dreary sky. Like she can see the blue, vibrant world way up there, unencumbered by rain or sleet or icy grave stones.

It’s a look she gets sometimes, when her spirit is calm and she has time to think. Toby’s never said it to anyone, and he never will, but Michelle looks statuesque and regal when she does this. A queen of the wind stepped down to earth for a brief moment of clarity before flying off to worlds unknown.

“Michelle?”

“Yeah?”

Toby swallows, cants his head. “What’s your real question?”

“Well, I’d imagine it’s quite similar to yours.”

“You mean, why did I drive to this tombstone if it’s fake and my real mother is very much alive in my house?”

Toby has been subjected to so many surprises in the last twenty-four hours that he thinks nothing can top them all. Opening the door to see his _mom_ standing there is certainly enough to set the bar for a lifetime.

But Michelle laughs, sprightly, irreverent, and sudden, and it catches Toby completely off guard. “No, Toby. Come on, you’re smarter than that.”

Toby again feels the warmth of her through his sleeve, with memories of his own, their easy partnership through the years, flooding his mind. Hairs prickle on his arms in harmony with the racing chill down his spine. He opens his mouth, closes it…and at last, works up his nerve enough to say it—

“Why is it easy, Michelle?”

“There you go.” She winks. “Now you’re catching on, asking the right question.”

Then she goes quiet. She leans into him a little and Toby reciprocates, more weight on one foot than the other, to allow her space to prop herself against his right shoulder.

“When I was fifteen, I was big into shoplifting,” says Michelle, and this one is less surprising than the laugh, somehow. “Mostly just for cool points, you know. Sticking it to bullies, stuff like that. I usually gave back what I stole. But then…”

The wind in her fae lungs catches for a second and Toby looks up at her. “Then?”

Michelle shakes herself into a professional expression. “Then my mom got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Six months to live.”

She smiles, even though nothing about this is humorous or even calming. “I lost her just before my sixteenth birthday, before I even got my learner’s permit. I stopped the shoplifting at once, of course, with bigger problems to worry about than my high school social standing. But my mom didn’t get better. And silly as it was, I felt like the disease was my fault.”

The words, to someone else, someone who’d had Tia’s golden childhood for instance, would sound foolish and nonsensical. Toby nods at once, understanding before she even says it. This, _this_ is logical.

“Like you weren’t worthy of her,” he finishes, voice decisive and rock steady, “that somehow the universe decided to take her away because of it.”

Michelle hums her agreement. “I became the model student—straight A’s, volunteer work at the senior’s home, student counsel. And you know what?”

Toby doesn’t need to read her mind to punctuate this thought. His hands tremor in his pockets. “She still died.”

“And she still died,” Michelle repeats, softly.

The two friends stare at each other, a universe of suffering, loneliness, and pain encompassed in their gazes alone. And he realizes, suddenly, what they are. They are friends, of course, but more than that, he and Michelle are each other’s escape. When life gets too much, they can run all over the streets of Toronto trying to fix someone else’s.

They are blood brothers, like soldiers.

“You were in a bad place when you started helping us,” says Michelle, with that factual neutrality that negates any suggestion of judgement.

It makes Toby feel safe enough to nod. “For sure. I’d just lost Charlie and any lead on my mom.”

“Did you feel ‘worthy’ of becoming a part of our unit?”

Toby looks at her, hard. Eyes narrowed. “No. I was a mess and we were all grumpy with each other.”

“That’s a very nice way of saying I didn’t truly smile at you until four months in.”

She and Toby have a chuckle over that one, for it’s true, and none of them were very lovable when they all met.

“But it was easy,” says Toby, quiet, melodic, like they’re Irishmen singing airs for the ocean. “It was work but there was no gatekeeping cost.”

Michelle nods. “Exactly. Nobody buys family, Toby. There is no five step plan before ‘poof,’ you’re ready. We are frustrating and human and ripe awful sometimes—but someone loving you is their choice, not yours. You can stop _running_ , Toby.”

He lets out another breath, and though it’s even, no hiccups, there’s a higher pitch to it that Michelle can probably see through. Then she shifts and holds his weight up for a few minutes. It’s subtle, but for them—a gesture more demonstrative than any hug. This is helped by the fact that Michelle is slightly taller when in heels, something Toby has always been bizarrely comforted by.

More illogical things. He’s surrounded by them, drowning in things that make no sense to the outside observer.

“I can’t read your mind, Toby.” Michelle nudges him with her toe this time, in a pair of magenta riding boots. “But I know you. And I know it’s scary right now but it will get…less scary, the more you let us in.”

Toby closes his eyes for a moment. The ducks are flying away now, along with some Canada geese coming home for the spring. Their honking floats overhead.

Michelle’s voice slips into a whisper. “Nobody is going to make you jump through any hoops or set up expectations to receive their love, least of all your mother.”

Toby doesn’t answer, but he sighs, and it is enough. Michelle goes back to her moor side tree impression and watches the geese. Toby finally stops shaking, feeling instead a blue tone peace wash through him, that even if he doesn’t fathom how it all works now—he will one day, and people like Michelle will be here to make sure of it.

They are not logical and yet they make perfect sense, to Toby. He and Michelle are at once kindred spirits and complete opposites, which means they see the world in a way no one else can.

Maybe the world needs more illogical things like them.

Then more footfalls join their huddle, these ones smaller and bringing with them a host of noise that isn’t externally audible.

Toby knows who it is before he even turns to look. “Mom.”

Maya offers a half smile, clearly worried. She rounds her own headstone and kicks at it. “A peaceful spot, no?”

“You chose it well,” Toby admits. He straightens, though Michelle sticks close. “This is a rural area, mostly farmland. Nobody will bother to come all the way out here to look for a coffin.”

“That’s the plan.”

Maya eyes Michelle and Toby’s heart jumps up to cower in his throat. He has to take a few deliberate breaths in through his nose before he can speak, and even then it’s faint, hushed. His mother met Tia last night, of course, the woman he hopes to grow old with, but this meeting feels different.

Very different.

This is the friend who has had Toby’s back from the start, through that one-in-a-million insight and loyalty they possess for each other. They’ve saved each other’s lives more times than he can tally up.

Toby steps forward so he’s at the halfway point between the two women. “Mom, this is Michelle. Michelle, this…this is my mother.”

Michelle doesn’t shake Maya’s hand right away, in a twist of the usual pleasantries. Instead, she shuffles so she’s at Toby shoulder again. Weird. They size each other up for a moment.

Finally, Michelle holds out her hand. “It’s an honour.”

And she means it. Maya must read this too, warmth filtering into her expression when their hands make contact. “Ah, you’re Toby’s partner at the IIB.”

“That’s right.”

“You’ve kept him safe, all this time. Thank you.”

Michelle’s eyes burn for a moment, twin blazes stoked by the whirlwind of her expression. “And I’ll continue to do so. I promise.”

“And a new mum to boot! Congratulations.”

Michelle gapes, first at Maya, then at Toby. “Did you tell her that?”

Toby throws his mother a look, lacking any heat. “Right now? Really?”

Michelle colours before rolling her eyes to hide it. “You’ve got a point, Toby. That will take some getting used to.”

“Sorry,” says Maya, sheepish. “Plus, you have that certain _look_ about you. Mothers can sense these things without any special help required.”

Michelle’s gaze turns assessing, fond. “Yes…they certainly can.”

It prompts a question out of Toby he’s wondered all along, from the second she walked through his front door. “Mom, whatever happened to him?”

“I don’t know.” Maya’s eyes cloud. Her mind flickers with an image of pink baby toes. “Your little brother was taken from me and I never saw him again. I’d hoped…I mean I never stopped…but I thought I might try searching for him. One last time.”

Origami sheets of love and pain and possibility fold themselves into tender shapes inside Toby’s chest. His eyes burn again but this time he lets them, riding the sensation to its conclusion. This turns out to be one quick, crystal tear falling to frosty ground at his feet and Maya takes his hand, hers beautifully warm.

“We could do that together,” he says, “if you want.”

Maya cups his cheek. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

Michelle watches the interaction with a keen but thrilled expression. She clears her throat. “You know, you have a slight advantage now, Toby, that you didn’t before.”

He reads the flicker of mischief in her eyes, stirring up the silt of determination, and matches it with a grin. Could it really be that simple, that people love him without expecting certain provisos in return? _Easy_ , her face says.

“Is that so?” Toby smiles. “Know any first rate investigators who specialize in finding missing people?”

“I just might. She’s five eleven, blond hair…”

“Knows how to take down supreme court judges.”

“Really great with a gun.”

“Doesn’t smile very much.”

Michelle swats his arm, which does virtually nothing to diminish their ourbouros of excitement. She and Toby are almost childlike with the giddiness of it, the prospect that they might be able to find his brother. “You’re impossible, Toby Logan.”

“Gotta keep you on your toes somehow.”

Maya catches some of the anticipation while they laugh, her eyes big. They are confused, and then stunned. “Are you…Sergeant, are you saying you’d be willing to put government resources on this?”

“For Toby? Anything.” Michelle sticks out her hand again. “I’m saying it would be my pleasure.”

Maya is frozen with surprise, such a huge gift so readily given. Easy _._ Then her eyes spill over and she forgoes the handshake to yank Michelle in for a hug. Toby is wickedly delighted to see the stoic detective at a loss, arms flailing before she figures out where to put them.

In one monumental burst, that one embrace, Toby’s past and present fuse together.

“Thank you!” Maya is saying it to Michelle but her eyes are on Toby. “ _Thank_ you!”

It is a striking image because it is propelled by love, from the affection on Michelle’s face to the golden and green flares of hope Toby can read running over the borders of his mother’s mind—

Carrying him, and all of them, onward to the future.


End file.
